Friday, March 18, 2011

SRP warns Malaysia of labour firm

Son Chhay speaks to journalists outside T&P Co Ltd last week in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district. (Photo by: Hong Menea)
Friday, 18 March 2011
Matt Lundy
The Phnom Penh Post

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party issued a letter on Wednesday to Malaysia’s ambassador to Cambodia, requesting the embassy alert its government to the alleged activities of T&P Co Ltd, a labour recruitment agency accused of imprisoning its trainees.

Opposition lawmaker Son Chhay wrote the letter – which details the accusations levelled against the company, in addition to the SRP’s investigations earlier this week – after receiving information that T&P had sent some of its trainees to Malaysia.

“We hope that your Embassy will … help in preventing these violations of human rights by informing your government as well as [raising] this situation with the Cambodian government so that a very close monitoring system can be set up in order to stop all forms of exploitation and abuses of the workers,” the letter read.


Deputy Head of Mission Raja Saiful Ridzuwan confirmed that the Malaysian embassy received the letter yesterday and said the embassy would issue a response within the next couple days. He said he briefly discussed the letter’s contents with Malaysian Ambassador Datuk Pengiran Hj Mohd Hussein Datuk Pengiran Hj Mohd Tahir Nasruddin.

The T&P recruitment agency has come under scrutiny since the death of a 35-year-old trainee in the company’s offices earlier this month. Several trainees have said they were denied leaves of absence from the company’s headquarters, including a 31-year-old trainee who broke both legs while trying to escape.

Son Chhay said yesterday that both countries’ governments had a responsibility to migrant workers, given the raft of human rights abuses that Cambodian workers have faced in Malaysia.

“I think [the Malaysian embassy] should be aware of what’s happening here, and be in contact with the labour ministry over there,” he said. “I think it’s a weakness in our system…and the irresponsibility of the Malaysian government to migrant workers.”

Ridzuwan said the embassy had no responsibility in domestic matters, such as investigations into T&P.

“There’s nothing much we can do,” he said. “I believe that the responsibility of the maids under training is on the government of Cambodia. Our responsibility is to issue visas to work in Malaysia.”

Ridzuwan said he believed “some workers” had been sent. to Malaysia by T&P.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Malaysia is a Muslim country and it is the nature of the Muslim to treat women like animal! This is so fucken irresponsible for the spokesman from Malaysian embassy such as AH Ridzuwan to have made such comments!

The fucken problem is AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave puppet government is such a corrupted government already and now these fucken foreign governments come into Cambodia to corrupted AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave government even more and now dirt poor Cambodian people are used as commodity to benefit the middleman and their government! Both the Malaysian government and AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave government turn blind eye and deaf ear on dirt poor Cambodian people for their own benefit from modern day slavery!

Cambodian women are human not animal so take your fucken maid job to somewhere else!

Anonymous said...

I dont see any others party helping on this?? CCP, Funcinpec or HRP.....they need to protect ours khmer people.

Anonymous said...

i glad to see some leaders care about helping bring justice to the people here. it is good for everyone to be proactive and help to make a real difference. don't just wait for gov't to take action, because the people is the gov't in democracy, you know!

Anonymous said...

Hun Sen needs to learn to stand up for our nation just like every other leader across the glob. If not he should step down and let others do an effective job instead. wisdom